1
“Don’t move!” Didi called to Harriet.
She’d been adjusting Harriet’s position for five minutes, and now, at long last, it was perfect. Harriet leaned against the big oak tree in Didi’s backyard, her knees drawn up and her hands behind her head. Didi was ready to sketch her.
Harriet was a fantastic model—her big, bold expressions made her fun to draw, and her body language was always interesting. But she seemed incapable of sitting still even for a minute.
Case in point: As soon as Didi put pencil to paper, Harriet jumped up and ran over to peer over Didi’s shoulder.
“I just want to see how it’s going.” Harriet frowned. “No offense, Di, but it doesn’t look like me at all.”
“Yeah, because I haven’t even started,” Didi said. The page was blank except for an oval for Harriet’s face, a neck, and the beginnings of shoulders. “Can you try to sit exactly the way I had you?”
“Sure thing, boss.” Harriet saluted her, and Didi had to laugh. Harriet could be exasperating, but she was impossible to stay mad at.
No sooner had Harriet assumed her tree-leaning, head-tilted, Mona Lisa–smile posture, she let out a howl.
“Ahhhhhh!” Harriet screamed as a tennis ball bounced off her forehead. She grabbed her head and threw herself onto the grass, rolling back and forth.
“I’m bleeding!” she yelled. “Am I bleeding?”
Resa and Amelia jogged over from where they’d been practicing volleys in Didi’s driveway. Amelia grabbed the tennis ball and leaned over to examine Harriet’s head.
“Sorry, Harriet,” she said. “But I think you’re okay.”
“The good news is that your backhand is killer, Amelia,” said Resa, smiling. “The bad news is, I mean that literally.”
“It’s a work in progress,” said Amelia. “Like your teaching skills.”
“I need ice,” Harriet moaned. “To control the swelling.”
“I’ll get some,” Amelia offered.
“And some more iced tea,” Harriet went on. “I’m parched.”
“Coming up,” said Didi, closing her sketchbook. The portrait session was obviously over. Maybe she’d try again next Sunday.
Didi grabbed the empty pitcher from the table on the patio and opened the screen door that led into the kitchen. Amelia followed behind her.
“Didn’t get too far with the portrait, huh?” asked Amelia.
“I mostly just needed to get a rough human figure for this design I’m working on,” said Didi. “But yeah, I didn’t even make it to the elbows.”
“Elbows are overrated,” said Amelia.
“If I could download PictureHouse, it wouldn’t be a problem,” said Didi. “I’d just upload a picture of Harriet, and then I could trace what I needed in, like, two seconds.”
Didi pulled an ice-cube tray from the freezer and overturned it onto a plate, releasing an abundance of ice cubes.
“That sounds like a cool app,” Amelia said. “You should get it.”
Didi dropped the ice cubes into the pitcher.
“I would,” Didi said, “but the subscription is super expensive.”
She pulled out a large plastic container full of tea from the fridge and poured it over the ice.
The screen door creaked, and Harriet staggered in, collapsing in a kitchen chair.
“How bad is the bump?” she asked the girls. “Be honest. Scale of one to ten.”
“I told her it was a zero,” Resa said, trailing behind her. “She doesn’t believe me.”
“Here.” Amelia handed Harriet a Ziploc bag full of ice. “This should help.”
“This, too.” Didi placed a fresh glass of iced tea, with extra honey to satisfy Harriet’s sweet tooth, in front of her. Then she filled a glass bowl with cheese crackers and placed it in the middle of the table. Didi’s mother believed in good manners, and she’d taught Didi that when guests came over, you always offered food, even if it was only cheese crackers.
“Hey, Didi,” said Amelia, filling her own glass with tea. “Maybe PictureHouse has a student discount. You should check.”
“They do,” said Didi. “Even with that, it costs $114 a year.”
Amelia whistled. “Steep.”
“It’s less than the price of a guitar,” said Resa, taking a long drink of the icy-cold tea.
“That is a true but random fact,” said Amelia.
“Not random,” corrected Resa. “When we sold Skinks merch, we made enough in one week to pay for a new electric guitar and drums for the band.”
“Yeah, and the boys still won’t let me come into their room!” Harriet pouted. “Which makes me seriously regret handing over all that money to them! I should’ve given it to my mom to pay for a new salon chair.”
Didi handed the girls coasters to put under their glasses.
“What’s wrong with your mom’s salon chair?” Didi asked, sitting down next to Harriet.
“What isn’t wrong with it?” Harriet asked. “The seat part hasn’t gone up or down for years, and then the boys were playing hockey in the basement and broke off one of the armrests. Plus, Zappa—”
Didi shuddered. Even the mention of that reptile’s name brought back the feeling of Zappa’s cold body on her head. A few weeks before, when Didi was at Harriet’s house, the pet skink had made a great escape and taken a wrong turn into Didi’s long brown hair.
“What’d Zappa do this time?” Amelia laughed.
“She’s pulled out the stuffing inside the seat!” Harriet exclaimed. “There’s hardly any left! It’s her favorite game now.”
“You could keep her in a cage,” suggested Resa with raised eyebrows.
Copyright © 2021 by The Harold Martin Company, LLC
